Home (is where the heart is)
by Lightning-sama
Summary: Laura finds out in the most innocent way, she decides to wash their clothes while Derek is getting lunch.


Laura finds out in the most innocent way, she decides to wash their clothes while Derek is getting lunch. It's the fourth motel they'd stayed in after the fire and they still smelt like smoke, Derek doesn't think it'll ever stop.

Derek comes back bearing bags of greasy food that he knows will make them sick, their mom had never let them have much junk food and they'd never liked it anyway but neither of them knew how to cook so.

"Laura, I'm back." Then Derek pauses, "Laura?" he calls out slowly because Laura's heart is beating strangely, fast and slow alternatively like she's trying to force her heart to slow down. He cautiously walks toward the bedroom and sees Laura sitting on the bed, a shirt clenched in her hands and Derek's blood runs cold because he knows that shirt. It's the shirt he'd been wearing the last time he and Kate had had sex, it still stuck of Kate and sex and him.

"Did you know?" Laura's voice is blank and soft.

"Laura-"

"Did you know!?" Laura yells leaping to her feet, hands fisted at her sides, "Did you know she was a hunter!?"

Derek flinches back, ducking his head and baring his neck, "No, no Laura I swear I didn-"

"How could you not know!?" Laura screams and her eyes and red, her fangs poking out of her mouth, claws shredding the shirt. "How could you be so stupid!?" She lets out a noise then, half helpless laugh half choked sob, "Was getting your dick wet that important, Der-bear?" The childhood nickname, usually said with a laugh. A teasing lilt of 'Come on Derek what are you gonna do? Huh, baby brother?' is spat out, a twisted poisonous parody of what it had been Before.

Derek recoils, shaking his head, "No Laura, no please I swear I didn't-"

"Shut up!" Laura screams, "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" She's shaking now, not trembling but actually shaking and jerking, and Derek knows she's just barely holding off from changing and tearing him apart. Part of him wishes she would.

Derek says the only thing he can, the one thing he's been aching to say since the fire, "I'm sorry Laura, I'm so so sor-" but Laura's eyes flash and she leaps at him with a screech, slamming him to the ground and wrapping a clawed hand around his throat, fingers digging in mercilessly.

"Shut," she hisses, "your goddamn mouth." She looks down at him with contempt, disgust and it hurts, god it hurts, but Derek knows he deserves it. Knows he deserves whatever punishment Laura comes up with. Because he betrayed his pack, he hurt his family and he knows that even a lack of knowledge is no excuse. So he closes his eyes and tilts his head back, submits to whatever Laura decides to do to him.

"I should tear your throat out." She says, voice shaking and Derek can't help but speak, can't help but say her name, try to apologise and she screams again. Tightens her hand and punches him with the other, then she yanks him up so she can throw him against the wall. Derek isn't even trying to hide the tears, the mix of salt water, snot and saliva streaking down his face, doesn't even try to rise. Just cowers against the wall becausehe deserves this.

Laura throws a glass at him, it shatters just above his head, shards of glass sticking in his skin, stopping the wounds from healing. Derek doesn't try to pick them out. Her hands shake at her sides and Derek can smell her blood where her claws have pierced skin. He wants to reach out, wants to grab Laura's hands in his and beg for forgiveness, wants his mom and dad to hug him, to let him hide away from the world like they used to when he as little, wants to go back to before he met Kate. He wants and wants and wants but it's no use wanting because his family's dead and it's all his fault.

Laura takes a single threatening step towards him and he flinches. He can't help it, Derek knows he deserves whatever Laura does to him, knows that it's his penance, his punishment for being stupid and arrogant and for thinking with his dick and not his head. But even so, Derek doesn't likepain. Doesn't enjoy it. Can still remember being five years old and crying for hours because of injuries that healed almost before they could form. So he flinches and Laura paues. Blinks. Then shakes her head in disgust.

"God," she says with a bitter laugh, "I can't even look at you right now." She lets out a breath and she looks so tired, haggard and broken and old, nothing like the sister derek grew up with. He whimpers softly.

"I'm gonna go," Laura says quietly, not looking at him, "and when I get back you are going to be asleep. Because right now Derek," she pauses and her hands spasm, "I will hurt you."

She doesn't stay to listen Derek's response, not that he had one, she just stepped calmly over the shattered glass, the cracked wood of the coffee table, the scattered remains of the greasy diner food, and leaves. Door snapping shut behind her.

Derek stays on the floor for a long time after Laura leaves, just breathing and shaking. When he feels like he can stand he cleans the room, throws out the food, he won't eat it and Laura will get herself food if she's hungry, and drops down onto the bed. That night when Laura comes back Derek pretends to be asleep and Laura ignores him. It's the first night since the fire Laura doesn't hold him when he starts crying and somehow, that just makes it worse.


End file.
